Announcement: Bringing Safety check to the chrome://extensions page

[Stefan Van Damme]

Bringing Safety check to the chrome://extensions page

Starting in Chrome 117, Chrome will proactively highlight to users when an extension they have installed is no longer in the Chrome Web Store. This is limited to three specific cases:

• The extension has been unpublished by the developer.
• The extension has been taken down for violating Chrome Web Store policy.
• The item was marked as malware.

We have designed this change to keep the ecosystem safe for users while limiting the chances that this will impact genuine extensions. If an issue is resolved, the notification is automatically cleared. The notification will not be displayed for an extension when the developer has been notified of a possible violation and has been given time to address the issue or appeal.

Users are most likely to encounter this feature in the "Privacy and security" section of the settings page.

Chrome will highlight these extensions in the "Privacy and security" settings.

When a user clicks "Review", they will be taken to their extensions and given the choice to either remove the extension or hide the warning if they wish to keep the extension installed. As in previous versions of Chrome, extensions marked as malware are automatically disabled.

Two extensions that are no longer present in the Chrome Web Store show on the chrome://extensions page.

As mentioned, we hope this change will help to keep the ecosystem safe without impacting genuine extensions.

Source: https://developer.chrome.com/en/blog/extension-safety-hub/

Thanks,
Stefan vd

[Oliver Dunk]

Thanks Stefan!

Hopefully this isn't one that will be seen much, but I wanted to make sure we did a post about it regardless.

In general I am very keen to make sure we communicate any and all changes we make :)

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Chromium Extensions" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to chromium-extens...@chromium.org.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/chromium-extensions/ec3fcb5d-3377-4225-be05-569e38b55016n%40chromium.org.

[Stefan Van Damme]

Hi Oliver,

👍 It is a positive move to establish a secure browser extension ecosystem and to prevent users from utilizing unofficial Chrome extensions that have been removed (due to copyright and trademark issues).

Thanks,
Stefan vd

[Uladzimir Yankovich]

All in all, this is a cool update.

@Stefan, thanks for reposting the news here.

[Extension Geek]

Hi @Oliver,

Is this experience alive on Chrome Canary? I remember seeing this a while ago for one of my installed extensions that was most likely unpublished by the developer. However, I no longer see the experience in Manage Extensions page.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/chromium-extensions/01a43549-79c6-47ab-93f5-575de3baded8n%40chromium.org.

[Oliver Dunk]

Hi,

This is being slowly rolled out to percentages of users - I'm not certain what the rollout percentage is at the moment.

You can enable the "Extensions Module in Safety Check" flag at chrome://flags if you'd like to try it, although it's not a super easy thing to test unfortunately.

Oliver Dunk | DevRel, Chrome Extensions | https://developer.chrome.com/ | London, GB